The Local Drive

I give this place 3.5/5 to host parties at! My partner and I hosted our engagement party and everyone loved the space! We were allowed to bring our own food. We reserved 3/5 of the bays which allowed us to have our own space for food. Meryl was very flexible with us. She also had several drink packages and allowed us to do a $600 tab minimum. This allows us to pay for 1-2 drinks per person and our family paid for additional drinks on their own tabs (including paying for additional tips). This worked well for our initial budget! There was an automatic 20% tip included that is for bartenders. Overall, we do recommend this space regardless of what happened at the end of the night (details below), it allowed adults & kids to have something fun to do! The only negative thing I have for this space was the tipping situation. When we reserved the space, we were charged an automatic 20% on the 3 bays ($204). 2 weeks before the event, my partner and I did a walk though where I asked Meryl what the 20% was for. She told me it was to guarantee the bartenders would get tipped out for bartending and/or anything the bays may need. I confirmed with her this would include the tipping for our bar tab. She confirmed it was. The night of our event, she did an additional 20% in my nearly $800 bar tab. When I asked her why, she said I needed to tip them out. I reminded her of our previous conversation, and she said the 20% tip was for the bay work only. I reminded her I had confirmed with her if the $204 was also for the bar tab and she had said confirmed it was ; therefore, I had not budgeted for this additional 20%, she was essentially asking for us to double tip them. Meryl then said would remove the 20% but that I had to tip them out additionally from the already paid $204 part of our contract. I felt very pressured and embarrassed so I tipped them an additional 15% (total was nearly $350 plus the additional tips they got from my family). This didn’t sit right with me because we had discussed what the tip was for prior to the event and at the moment of paying for our tab, I felt pressured & taken advantage of since I had alcohol in my system. I would’ve appreciated her being transparent with me 2 weeks prior when I had clarified versus the way it was handled.